Rainbirds
How did this poem come to be penned?
In the middle of New York City, circa 1978, on a sweltering hot day and hit with a summer cold, I felt quite delirious. It came out of left field, and this cold felt anything but “common”—with its fever and chills and bone-tired limping-along full body aches. For several days, I had little choice but to stay in bed and rest, sleeping when I could and daydreaming when I couldn’t. I dreamed about feeling good enough again to read great literature (something I tried to do which took enormous effort), and also thought and fantasized about writing. As an aspiring writer of poetry in my teens and early twenties I had, for years, wondered about about a title for my American novel. And out of nowhere, or so it seemed, I heard the words: “‘It’s Hard to Hear the Rainbirds Sing in New York City.’ That’s your title.”
Hmmm. Intriguing, I thought. But what does it mean?
I had this experience about eight years before I began channeling. As fate would have it, channeling, not novel writing, became the major portion of my “writing” life. Since my start of writing novels began at age ten, I naturally thought that was my goal. I felt Spirit gave me that title for a reason. And during one night of a slivered moon stillness, overlooking a lake in the wilds of Canada, the poem (not the content of my novel) appeared on the page. It mostly crafted itself. Below is what emerged which has been tweaked a few times here and there over the years. It was not finished for almost ten years and I had moved back to the States.
Its name and inner meaning was haunting to me as I find it a great metaphor for life—none of us know with 100% assurance or clarity what is around the corner for us when in modern life it is hard to hear the cries of the rainbirds. Do we listen? Do we hear? If we do, just what do we hear?
I am including it in its entirety, followed by a portion of my commentary. The term and reference to “Rainbirds” is a theme some of The WisdomTeachers have used in their communications through me. It definitely ties in with my Memoir and writings in general.
It’s Hard to Hear the Rainbirds Sing in NYC
I whisper, madly, that
For the sake of reign,
I can’t hear the rainbirds[i] sing.
I am in NYC’s reign:
The din of
Fire trucks and sirens
And honk-y taxis and muddle.
Only in Central or a few other parks here
Is there a breathable respite?
Trees breathe with
Madison Avenue spirit.
Hard to do,
For a tree.
But they have a certain nobility,
Regal in the way they stretch their limbs
Up –
The only place they can, really.
And then there are the flowers,
Neatly combed,
Shielded in their homes
Of marble blocks in
Flagpole Graves
Outside stately buildings
Here and there.
God,
I was really there for seven years!
And saw the finer parts of the City.
The Handsome cabs
And Harlem tributaries
Cloisters, too (but I waited far too long to see them and
only went back once),
And THE Grand Central Station –
(Just why was it so Grand?
The flow of passengers?
Ah, the grand staircase.
That must have been it!)
Or maybe some feel grand to be there.
To have arrived.
Modern-day Ellis Island in the
Throes of captured West or East Side Stories.
And the stories Front-and-Center, too.
Immigrants, no longer, its participants
Mostly live lives of “biz”-y busy-i-ness
And pass through without thought –
Other than,
It ain’t so grand that the Station is so
Flippin’ big
If one has to make the Croton-on-Hudson
When coming from 63rd and Lex.
Rainbirds.
Do they even come here?
Least I don’t recall seeing them.
Or, maybe they do,
But just don’t STAY.
Who knows. They are nigh onto invisible.
When they caw,
No one understands their language,
Even those who fly along the Great White Way.
And so, they go back to Kansas
Or Oklahoma
To warn of tornadoes
A’comin.
Seems people there listen.
But when they caw in N Y C,
They don’t have the distinctive accent
And might be misunderstood
When ordering
Caw-fee (for one thing).
Or listen to a waitress sling an order for
“Adam and Eve on a raffft” (eggs on toast).
For, it seems, New York City
Hasn’t created a penthouse
For rainbirds.
Their job is to come-you-nigh-cate (communicate)
That rain might be
Here a’fore ya know it.
And it’s mostly way too noisy to hear their song
Or see them as they fly.
But pigeons—well, they just
Flock and bob their heads
There and here,
Feelin’ right at home.
Pecking their way out of starv-ability
From the leftovers
Of fruit stands or restaurants.
Pooping lots over
Ledges, and gargoyles, and steeples
And such.
Metronome-ing their tail feathers
To settle in crevices or other places to sleep
That delight them.
After all, it IS their city.
And definitely they consider
The parks the place to be.
For the sake of their reign, then.
So, let me ask you—
Can you hear
Rainbirds sing
In NYC?
What storm is coming –
really?
In your life?
In the life of the City?
Were the rainbirds screeching
On 9/11 or even 9/10
To warn?
For the City’s own Doppler radar
Seemed not to be working.
We coulda used a rainbird’s
Song – in chorus
Then,
By the Twin Towers…
Wouldn’t we/wouldn’t ya say?
__________________________
The believer in you
And the believer in me
Can but pause.
For effect, surely.
But the sounds or movements that signal rain,
Well, I speak for me (and maybe you?) —
They seem harder to hear, here—in the City.
Is it that we just don’t listen —
In the middle of Broadway,
On Times Square,
Or when traveling through the Lincoln Tunnel?
It used to be called The Naked City.
It feels covered now.
Covered in the beat of Newness.
Of hipness.
With the W,
Just a couple of blocks from
Tried-and-true Sardis
and Forrest’s friend’s spot,
Bubba Gump’s.
After all, consider all the amazing talents
Splashing in front of and behind the curtains
Of On- and Off-Broadway theaters.
And—oh my!—the talent that exudes
All days but Mon-days
Past velvet ropes,
And on a stage,
That comes alive with
A baton’s first rise.
I love Sondheim[ii]’s brilliance
When he pleaded --
“Isn’t it rich?
Isn’t it queer?
Losing my timing this late,
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Well, maybe next year.”1
There was a time when I watched the City lights
Night after Night
Over the East River
To Judy Collins singing that song,
Wondering why I never heard
One from the Rainbirds.
The bevy of pigeons who cluckety-cluck,
Waiting for their own
Style of tea and crumpets
Are the birds of paradise here.
Rainbirds —
Wel-ll,
Can’t seem to get a word in edgewise.
In childhood, I remember the sweetness of the rainbird’s sounds
In the lazy Midwest spring rains and summer days’ daze.
Foretelling, foreboding,
But signaling, nonetheless.
It was scary, but not.
In the world of City life, of the incomprehensible magnitude of bells
And whistles and promises of amazing success and having-it-all,
There is little heed to the call of the rainbirds.
They find it hard to signal to any of us about the rain to come!
—for us personally.
—and for about the events/things of the world.
But maybe we have lost the privilege to recognize. To hear what they could teach us.
And so we are,
Without the warnings that might mean a great deal
When working to navigate the images of what could be
A gift from beyond,
A gift that might entice us to look, to listen, and then take heed of the tempests so very close at hand.
[i] “Rainbirds,” also known as Green Woodpeckers, Jamaican Lizard-Cuckoo, Pacific Koel, or Channel-billed Cuckoo
whose sounds and movements are thought to signal the coming of rain. NB: CHECK AGAIN
[i]Sondheim, Stephen, lyrics to the song “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music NB: OK to “ “?
My Commentary
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3/25/06
In the Power
In the Power
And
In the Reign
Of Self-appointed
Counsel
Attributed, in fact,
Is the plea of in-
Sanity.
In-sans-ditty.
Crouching ‘neath of
Mindful play
Of Games and Self-Talk-
Versation
Is that victim –
Rimless, spineless
SO less in eyes of
Me-hood, more than other-hood.
Criminal; yes, she
Begs to know
The reason for each
Trial—
Is it always MURDER ONE that sigh-rens heralds my ________
And capitulates my night in court when
Shadow sounds
Triumph all my motions and appeals
I am 12 members and I am
Judge.
I am arrested
In my tracks.
My ballot’s
Universal.
The verdict read
Drowns hope, instead.
“Guilty”
Off
With my head.
Oh, were it easy
And possible
To unplug the silent recorder
Within my mind –
Repeating
Now and always
The details of my crime.
Would that my head
Stand on its own
As victim, it reveals
The stubborn inch of
_______________________.